I would love an EV but I can’t find anything that fits my needs/restrictions that are currently solved by an ICE…
I do 15000 commuting miles a year (18-20K total)
I carry boxes and shit around regularly
I like touring holidays and require a decent load space
Mid length trips happen with very short notice which sometimes need to be uninterrupted
It must be comfortable (semi-luxurious) to drive with lots of gadgets
It must also be able to handle well as I like my local B roads
It must fit within my restricted budget.
Once something turns up that fits, I’d be all over it like a cheap suit.
I suppose a Hybrid might work but 70% of my driving is done on Motorways, and short of a Volvo XC (which is out of budget), I’ve not seen much that would work.
And there’s my problem. Well one of them.
The diversity just isn’t here yet.
In time I’m sure the range issues will be sorted along with the charging stations. But it seems quite a way off, and the variety of platforms just doesn’t exist yet.
This is a big problem with most current EVs. I need the facility to do an unexpected trip of about 40 miles, but this means that in this weather I need to keep the car above 50% most of the time - the motorway range right now might be not much over 100 miles.
Basically, to make EVs work for more people there need to be many more charging facilities at 100kW or above, and cars need to be able to use that.
I just meant how he compared new electric to classic cars and didn’t show the comparison of new electric vs new petrol.
With start to end of life and disposal of a vehicle covering 100,000 miles and based off of a 40% renewable charge vs petrol. Electric cars produce 70% less carbon.
Edit: not that electric is the answer, reduction of cars and need to drive is the answer.
Either way I probably won’t go back to petrol except in the weekend toy category.
When I walked past my neighbour this morning he looked deeply unhappy as he was scraping quite thick ice from his car. I told him that I had just pressed a button on my phone and now my car was warm and de-iced. He didn’t reciprocate my smile.
I don’t think he would disagree that electric cars are much better. It was an interesting point about electricity generation - if everyone had one, being on a green tariff is not going to work as there isn’t enough renewable electricity to go round for that, especially with the increase in demand.
Agree. And the whole pushing new product every three years has to change (as per current leasing). The good news is that on the whole I’d expect EVs to be more reliable, meaning the lifetime is longer.
And then you’re fighting against the business model of the whole automotive industry (change your car, look this one is ever so slightly different/ betterer unit shifting), and the learned behaviour of some consumers who think having a new car on your drive every 5 mins is symbol of their affluence and esteem etc.
Sadly we are still in the ‘look , shiny, want’ stage which only reinforces the above.
There’s still a need for a big industrial scale enterprise in recycling the EVs and in particular the batteries whilst consumption and replacement rates stay the same.
Oh, I completely agree, consumerism lies at the heart of problem. Keep turning over that product (it’s not just the car industry to be fair). I have no illusion about how difficult it will be to change behaviours and business models, but it has to happen, or it’s just more of the same conspicuous consumption, albeit at a reduced level.
I’m not sure it’s all consumerism though. My old car was 14 years old and generally a decent runner, but Oxfam got the princely sum of £145 in scrap value for it. A friend just had his cat stolen from his hybrid, and they said that if it was much older than its five years, it would have been a write off.
The cost of repairing and maintaining an older car has become so great that the move to new comes well before the car is at the end of life. In many ways this is because the expertise of fixing a car is not cheap.
Unfortunately it’s hard to see what to do. Maybe remove VAT from car repairs? Increasing the tax on new cars will never be a vote winner!
While I wanted to move to an EV for many reasons, the thing that swung it in the end was hard economics - it is cheaper to run than my old car. It wasn’t consumerism, it was the combination of pollution and cash.
For you, perhaps. Well done. But for mr company car Audi, and mr I’m better than you, then it’s very much about the new shiny as Wayne said. Liek any industry, new product turnover is required. If that slows, I expect new cars to get more expensive (maybe not a bad thing).
I would expect EVs to have a longer lifetime due to he simpler drive-train, so inherently they should be more reliable and have a longer lifetime. It will be interesting so see if this changes things.
Completely, but him leaving it out will just feed the anti electric idiots.
As for the renewable energy, yes we are a way off, but the first quarter of this year the UK as a whole was 47% renewable. I think that’s a great figure, but to get to the high renewable levels will be super spendy. Smart grid and energy storage are not cheap at all.
CEO of Ford was on Jay Leno yesterday, he said the best thing was not having to put all the things that break on the new electric mustangs as electric cars don’t need them. Does make me wonder though as the servicing is a big money maker for all car makers. Same as Rolex servicing watches etc.
